1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of communication networks and, in particular, to providing for content sharing in communication networks through multimedia ringback tones.
2. Statement of the Problem
When a calling party places a call to a called party, the ring tone or audio sounds heard by the calling party when waiting for the called party to answer the call are referred to as ringback tones. The communication network over which the call is placed provides the ringback tones to the calling party, which is typically a ringing sound. A present trend of service providers is to offer customized ringback tones to its subscribers. Customized ringback tones may comprise music, songs, sound clips, audio messages, prerecorded greetings, etc, that the communication network plays as ringback tones instead of or in addition to the traditional ringing sound. Customized ringback tones may be associated with specific directory numbers of the calling parties, such as with phone lists or exclusion lists. The subscriber can also set conditions for when, for whom, or what is played for the ringback tones based on time, day of the week, the calling party, etc. Customized ringback tones have generated high revenues for services providers.
Emerging multimedia phones (e.g., wireless handsets, broadband wireline phone sets, SIP phones, etc) allow for multimedia ringback tones. A multimedia ringback tone comprises any multimedia-type message, such as text, audio, video, etc, that is played while a calling party waits for a called party to answer a call. The subscriber can define selected images or video clips as multimedia ringback tones and store them in the communication network. If a calling party calls the subscriber, the communication network plays back the selected image or video clip, possibly along with audio, to the calling party based on the multimedia ringback tone profile defined by the subscriber. Although multimedia ringback services are useful, they may have further features that have not been explored by service providers.
Apart from multimedia ringback services, some individuals create or own content that they want to share with other people, such as friends and family. Content sharing such as this is especially popular for younger individuals that want to share digital pictures, images, video clips, etc, with their friends. To share content on the Internet, an individual may email the content to another party, may post the content on their website for download by another party, or share the content in other ways. Unfortunately, there may be content sharing mechanisms that have not been explored by service providers.